Terminal USA - Enzian Theater

A force of nature since 1985, underground icon Jon Moritsugu—in partnership with wife Amy Davis—creates candy-colored genre riots that feel like NC-17 sitcoms from outer space. Moritsugu’s fearless, protopunk deconstructions function as a giant middle finger to everything from racism to gender expectations—while also exploring themes of Asian-American identity.

Holly (Jenny Woo), Marvin (writer/director Jon Moritsugu), and Katzumi (Moritsugu again) are average Asian-American teenage siblings with not-so-average predilections for backstabbing, kinky sex, and drug-fueled freakouts. Neglected by their parents, the kids turn to outside “help” (including the scene-stealing Amy Davis, Moritsugu’s wife and longtime collaborator) in order to escape their bored existence. Naturally, this leads to gore killings, sex tapes, and the most hilarious phone conversations ever captured on 16mm film.

Funded with a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with the intention of being distributed on PBS; Once the film was completed, virtually no stations would dare to air it!

A candy-colored hellscape that feels like an episode of STRANGERS WITH CANDY that was filmed by Dario Argento during a three-day acid bender, Jon Moritsugu’s TERMINAL USA is a crucial piece of 1990s alternative cinema—smart, shocking, and one of the most deranged films to ever be funded by American taxpayers. This is the film HEATHERS wished it could be.

60 minutes, USA, 1993, Directed by Jon Mortisugu, Unrated

“Funny, anarchic, provocative and exhilarating. Recalling the works of John Waters, Mr. Moritsugu’s films are wild and aggressively alternative without descending into easy nihilism."
- Mike Hale, NEW YORK TIMES,
“Jon Moritsugu turns the American sit-com family on its head with TERMINAL USA, a post-punk, psychedelic picnic brimming with wholesome depravity.”
– David Roony, VARIETY
“Father Knows Best” meets “Pink Flamingos”… a post-punk soap opera about an Asian American family that single-handedly shatters the clean-cut, hard-working image of the model minority.”
- NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
“Jon Moritsugu's cinema is aggressive, abrasive, and it doesn't stop. His zero-budget movies have spastic editing, disorienting post-sync sound, and bright neon colors; they're a treat for the senses, and poison for the mind”
- THE VILLAGE VOICE